


A Night In

by akashinu



Series: Lovely City Boys AU [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Affection, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Boys Kissing, Cooking, Cuddling & Snuggling, Domestic Boyfriends, Domestic Fluff, Fire Nation (Avatar), Fluff, Gentle Kissing, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, he mostly just misses zuko though, mention of Aang, mention of katara, sokka feels really out of place in the fire nation, sokka looks really good while cutting fish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:48:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27966338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akashinu/pseuds/akashinu
Summary: Zuko and Sokka have a date night where they cook dinner together after Zuko gets back from a months long diplomatic mission in the Earth Kingdom.Post-canon modern AU where the boys settle down together in the Fire Nation and Zuko becomes a Fire Nation diplomat to the Earth Kingdom.Sequel to "Every Day Without You Passes Too Slowly" but can also stand alone. Part of the Lovely City Boys AU.
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Lovely City Boys AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2054121
Comments: 3
Kudos: 50





	A Night In

Zuko absolutely hated the smell of fish.

His right hand tightened around the handles of the plastic bag that contained his and Sokka’s date night dinner. Two whole pompanos that Sokka had asked him to pick up from the supermarket around the corner.

Normally, Zuko didn’t eat fish, but on the rare occasions that he did, they never had heads that could stare back at him while he ate. A shiver went up his spine at the thought as he set the bag down on the kitchen counter and took his shoes off.

Sokka came out of the bedroom when he heard Zuko shuffling around in the kitchen. “Yes! You brought the fish!”

“So what’re you supposed to do with it?” Zuko asked, shuffling away from the counter where the plastic bag sat. The smell of fish was too strong for him in the small apartment. He pinched his nose and tried to breathe with his mouth.

“Hey, I thought our date night was supposed to be us cooking together,” Sokka replied.

Zuko tried to find the right words to say what he was thinking. “Yeah, I’d be one hundred percent down to cook with you if the thing we were cooking wasn’t so… smelly.”

Sokka didn’t get angry. How could he? It’s not like fish was a common occurrence in Fire Nation cuisine. “How about this? I’ll deal with the fish while it’s raw and you can make the rice.” Sokka pushed past Zuko and took the plastic bag with the fish to the sink. “Did you remember to ask them to gut and bleed it?”

“Yeah,” he replied quickly. At least they didn’t gut livestock right in front of you.

Sokka rolled up his sleeves in preparation. He ran each fish under cold water and placed it on the cutting board. “See, now that it’s out of the bag it won’t smell so bad.” He turned back to see Zuko still holding his nose. “You can let go of your nose now I swear.”

Zuko hesitantly removed his hand from his face, taking note of the dissipating fish odor. He silently moved closer to Sokka’s back and took a peek over his shoulder. 

Sokka had taken out the butcher knife from the drawer under the counter and began to cut perpendicular to the spine on the first fish. He placed his weight on both of his hands and began to wiggle the knife downwards through the still partially frozen meat. Sokka grunted loudly as the knife hit the cutting board with a satisfying crack. He stepped back to admire the slice he had made, having completely separated the head from the rest of the body.

Zuko watched his boyfriend work to cut through the pompano with a newfound curiosity. He watched Sokka’s shoulders heave as he pressed his weight down on the knife and every muscle in his back flex through his only slightly too-tight shirt. These were motions that Sokka knew well from his upbringing in the Southern Water Tribe, and motions that Zuko knew he would never understand, let alone be able to replicate. He leaned his back against the counter behind him and watched Sokka slice through both fish with relative ease.

Sokka could feel Zuko’s eyes on him the whole time he was working. He turned around to face his boyfriend. “Zuko, if you want, you can help with marinating the fish.” When he saw Zuko’s eyes widen a little, he added, “I swear it won’t smell so bad when you get some spices on it.”

“Spices?” Zuko’s question hung in the air. Sokka slowly reached for the cabinet next to the stove and pulled out a steel tin where Zuko had begun a humble spice collection during his travels to the former Fire Nation colonies. He watched as Sokka hooked his fingernails under the lid and popped it open, the scent of chili powder and turmeric hanging between them.

“Now you’re gonna have to do this part because I don’t know shit about spice.” Sokka handed the tin to Zuko, who gently placed it next to the cutting board. He brought one of the cups in the tin close to his nose. Turmeric and chili powder were a must. He gently placed the pieces of pompano into a glass bowl, suddenly aware of the soft meat and taut skin between his fingers. He noticed that the fish had stopped smelling as much now, or maybe he was finally getting used to it.

Zuko pulled out a spoon from another drawer and put three hefty spoons of turmeric into the bowl. He took one spoon of chili powder and turned around to see Sokka watching him from behind. “Is one spoon okay?” Zuko asked slowly. He could definitely take the heat, but he didn’t want to risk Sokka’s pleasure.

“Yeah, one spoon is fine.”

Zuko dumped the red powder into the bowl with the fish and wondered if he should try and mix something else with it. He brought another cup to his nose and put it down. This could be useful. He added half a spoon of the unknown greenish powder and hoped that it would help bring down the spice.

He looked back at Sokka, momentarily unsure of what to do.

“You know I usually don’t make fish like this,” Sokka replied, motioning for him to continue.

Zuko tentatively reached his right hand into the bowl and let his fingers run over a chunk of fish. He began to smooth the spices over each piece of fish, turning it over and making sure to wipe the marinade from his hand as much as he could until each piece was sufficiently coated.

“We should probably let it sit for a little while and marinate properly,” he said to himself and moved the bowl into the fridge.

Sokka moved to the bag of rice sitting against the wall and measured one cup out into a pot. Zuko had once told him that making rice was a lot like making tea, making sure the proportions of grain to water were right and then keeping the flame controlled while it cooked. Sokka immediately took Zuko’s word for it as he had never cooked or eaten rice until he started living permanently in the Fire Nation.

“How much water is it?” he called out to Zuko who was busy setting the table.

“A little less than twice as much,” Zuko called back. 

Sokka made sure to fill the pot with a little less than two cups of water and placed it on the stove.

Zuko made his way back into the kitchen and turned on the gas burner. He quickly produced a spark in his hand and let it light the burner. He opened the cabinet next to the stove and pulled out another jar of spices. He placed two small green pods no larger than his fingernails into the heating water.

“What’s that one called?”

“Cardamom, I think. It was a gift from one of Uncle’s friends.” Zuko placed the jar back in its spot in the cabinet. He was going to need to start labeling his spice collection soon.

“Do you want vegetables?” Zuko asked to break the silence. “We’ve only got rice and fish so I can make something else.”

Sokka immediately fired back. “Dude, first of all, I’m literally appalled that you thought I would let you make veggies on our date night. And second of all, you just got back from Ba Sing Se yesterday so if there’s anyone who’s gonna be making us some stupid vegetables, it’s gonna be me.” He pushed Zuko in the direction of the dinner table. “Go sit. I can pop some cauliflower in the oven or something.”

“We also need to fry the fish after that’s done,” Zuko added.

“Yeah yeah we have to do that too,” Sokka said absentmindedly while cutting the cauliflower.

Zuko grabbed a can of soda from the fridge and settled down on the couch. The can opened cleanly with a crack and he took a sip of cool soda, his eyes never leaving Sokka’s back.

Soon enough, Sokka came to join him on the couch as they waited for the rice to finish cooking and the cauliflower to roast. Sokka made himself comfortable in the crook between Zuko and the back of the couch, leaning the top of his head directly under Zuko’s chin.

“How was Ba Sing Se?” Sokka asked quietly.

Zuko tilted his head away from Sokka’s so he could speak better. His hands immediately found their way around Sokka’s waist to deepen their contact.

“I went to uncle’s tea shop a lot when I had time. He was obviously happy to have me hang around for a couple days after work. But even though I spent all my free time with him, it was really lonely.” He helped tilt Sokka’s head to look back at him. “It would’ve been much better if you were there with me.”

Sokka’s words caught in his throat. “I would’ve liked that,” he barely managed to get out before Zuko gently pressed his lips to Sokka’s. 

Sokka flipped himself around so that he was hovering over Zuko. No matter how many times they ended up in the same position, Sokka knew he would never get tired of being on top of Zuko and seeing his face completely flushed. He drew both of his arms around Zuko’s body and snuggled himself down into his chest, breathing in his scent mixed with the spices from earlier. Despite what he thought about firebending as a martial art, this firebender was basically a human fireplace-- nothing but warm and inviting.

“Zuko, what if you didn’t travel anymore,” Sokka mused. “I don’t like living alone and you know that but you still go to Ba Sing Se and you still go to Omashu and I don’t like it at all. I wish you just stayed here with me in the Fire Nation all the time.”

Zuko blushed even harder. He didn’t know what to say. He held Sokka closer to him and buried his nose in Sokka’s hair that was falling out of its ponytail. Zuko closed his eyes for a moment. “I wish I did too.”

The oven beeped loudly. Sokka nearly fell out of Zuko’s lap with a shriek.

Both men hurriedly picked themselves up and went back to the kitchen. Sokka turned the gas burner off for the rice and pulled the cauliflower out of the oven, while Zuko got busy taking out flour to coat the fish and setting up the pan to fry them on.

“To be honest, I’ve never actually done this myself,” Zuko admitted, as he heated a cast iron pan on the stove. “But I think I get the general idea of it.”

He placed two pieces of fish on the pan and watched them sizzle in the oil. The meat crackled softly as he gently pressed it further into the pan. 

Sokka watched Zuko carefully cook each fish piece with interest. It had never even occurred to him to pan fry fish, let alone cover it with spices and flour.

Zuko placed the pan with the fried fish on the dinner table and took his seat across from Sokka. The two empty seats at their sides had to stay empty for now, but their presence was felt in the silence. 

“Any letters?” Zuko asked as he took food into his plate.

“Yeah, one from Katara last week and surprisingly there’s one from Aang that came yesterday morning.” Sokka got up to get them from the coffee table. “I guess Toph hasn’t talked to her scribe recently,” he added. He came back to the dinner table with two opened envelopes. “I already read Katara’s. I haven’t read Aang’s yet because I thought you might want to read it together.”

“What did she say?”

Sokka took a bite of cauliflower. “Well, she says her school’s been going good.” 

Zuko looked at him surprised. “Katara opened a school?”

“Yeah,” Sokka started, suddenly realizing that Zuko had been cut off from not just him for the last few months. “It’s a water bending academy. She’s got her first batch of students already and they’ve been training nonstop. She loves her students but they’re exhausting so she’s been learning how to knit from Gran Gran on the weekends so she doesn’t go crazy. And of course she asked about what you’ve been up to.” Sokka made sure to make direct eye contact with Zuko. “I told her about your promotion to Chief Diplomat and how you’ve been traveling all over the Earth Kingdom for like the past year and it’s been making me crazy being alone here.”

“It’s only been eight months,” Zuko corrected.

“Well it definitely felt like a year,” Sokka snapped.

Sokka’s anger hung in the air for a moment, suffocating both men as they went back to eating.

“How’s the fish?” Zuko asked nervously. He hoped he hadn’t made it too spicy. Though in his opinion, the spice made for a good distraction from the strong smell.

“Surprisingly good,” Sokka replied. “I’ve never had fried fish before but this is really nice.”

They ate the rest of their meal silently. Zuko watched Sokka pick at the fish bones and suck them clean like he had been doing this forever. He wondered, if he had been born in the Southern Water Tribe, would he be able to do the same? Would the smell of fish sicken him less? If he had been born in the Southern Water Tribe and they had never left, would it pain Sokka any less to watch him leave on diplomatic missions for months at a time, knowing that he still had the comforting presence of his family and his tribe?

Sokka was the first one to get up and put his plate in the sink. He lightly scrubbed it by hand and placed it on the dish rack. He did the same with his fork.

Zuko stood behind his Sokka and placed his head on Sokka’s shoulder. “Y’know, my next mission isn’t for another three months. But that’s a long vacation and I’d like to spend as much of it with my beautiful boyfriend as possible.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this work, come hang out with me on tumblr! I don't bite! @akashinu


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